Sharp, light, price, image quality, IS and the build is better than expected.

Cons:

nothing that I can see so far.

I got this lens on a crazy Adorama promotional sale price that was posted here at FM. The lens and a Canon calculator for $309 new. I was looking for a little longer range than the 70-200 f4 I had and decided to pull the trigger. Could not beat the price.

In all honesty, the image quality equals the 70-200 f4 I had. Quite surprising since I never investigated this lens before. The build is no where near the L glass, but it is still nice and solid. I have mainly shot in AI Servo with this lens and have had no real issues with focusing speed or inaccuracy. Of course, my subject has been my 5 year old, so I am not using it for any pro sports, etc...

Overall a solid lens. I am very pleased with it. Was working to get a 70-200 f2.8 L, but now I am not in any hurry because this will serve me just fine.

Can an 8 year old DSLR still be relevant? Can it still perform and compare to newer cameras today?

It really tells you something when people are still reviewing it 8 years after it's original release date. I picked mine up 2 weeks ago and after about 2 minutes of use, I kicked myself for selling mine 3 years ago. I have a 7d and 60d that are sitting at home right now since I made this camera my every day walk around body. So fast, so accurate focus wise, and so solid, I cannot get enough of it. And for the price, it really is a steal. Images are excellent still. With enough light, this camera is still a winner. It may suffer at higher ISO compared to the newer cameras, but if you have enough light, it performs perfectly. For sports, it is still killer with 8fps.

If you can score one of these, I would do so. It still works fantastic to this day.

I think this camera is a winner. I am amazed by the overall quality of it. The build quality is stellar. I thought I would be taking a step back build wise coming from the 1Ds Mark II, but after using it, it feels almost the same with the battery grip on it (the grip is a little wider than I like, but it was easy to get used to). The grip fits tighter than any other grip I have tried.

It is a blazing fast camera, especially for the price. I wouldn't expect this kind of speed from something under $5k.

You have all read the reviews, so there is really not much more that I can say. I will throw a wrench into the comments about weight. I absolutely love the weight of this camera. First off, it is not a toy, so it should not feel and weigh like one. In 3 years, I have gone from a Digital Rebel, to 30d, to this, and every jump has been large, but the 30d to this was huge. The weight is perfectly balanced with my 100-400 and my walk around 24-105 works great with it as well. I rarely wear it on a strap, so I ain't got it dangling and choking me due to the supposed heaviness. The menus are set up nice, a step back from the 30d, but I like them just as much in other ways. Sure, no mirror lockup, small screen, blah blah blah, but we all knew that going in, so.... LOVE the battery life. Brilliant battery life. LOVE the AI Servo focusing, LOVE the ISO, and absolutely LOVE the image results. This is by far the finest piece of equipment I have ever used in photography (for the short time I have been doing it seriously), in I.T. (a computer geek by trade) or anything else I can think of. If you can get your hands on one of these new, Canon has phased it off their site, and want the most serious piece of camera hardware you can get your hand on (until mid November), I would definitely buy it. I carry it everywhere I go in a Slingshot 200 AW and could not be happier.